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My irons are the '09 X-Forged with the Project X Flighted shafts. At standard length the swingweight is D2. I purchased them at +1 so I am thinking the swingweight is D8? The grips are 50 grams.

I've had some elbow problems and am looking for a softer grip, and I would also like to make the club lighter. I was thinking of a 25 gram Winn Lite soft grip.

But this is where I get confused. A 25 gram grip would increase the swingweight to E4? But the static weight would decrease by 25 grams. So, the overall club is lighter, but the swingweight is much heavier. [I understand swingweight to mean how the weight is distributed thoughout the club].

Would the club will swing lighter because I reduced the static weight even though the swingweight is "heavier"?

I could fool the swingweight scale by using a heavier grip and even adding weight to the butt end of the club, but then the static weight would be much higher.

What do you think would be easier on my elbows a lighter static weight or a "lighter" swingweight?

I could switch to graphite, but a) I really don't have the money to invest in that right now, b) I prefer steel, c) a softer grip would help reduce vibration, and d) I'm guessing a lighter club would reduce the strain as well.

When I have needed to reduce weight I have always opted to go with a lighter shaft. I have tried your experiment - reducing grip weight but the increase in swingweight seemed to offset the decreased static weight essentially giving me the sensation that not much had changed.

If you need to reduce weight I would recommend you go with a lighter shaft and have the clubmaker do his best to keep your swingweight down to something you are comfortable with.

There are some nice light weight steel shaft options; you do not have to move to graphite to find a good shaft. Check out the Nippons (850, 950) or True Temper GS (75,95). The Nippons will give you a mid-high ball flight. The GS will provide a high ball flight.

My irons are the '09 X-Forged with the Project X Flighted shafts. At standard length the swingweight is D2. I purchased them at +1 so I am thinking the swingweight is D8? The grips are 50 grams.

I've had some elbow problems and am looking for a softer grip, and I would also like to make the club lighter. I was thinking of a 25 gram Winn Lite soft grip.

But this is where I get confused. A 25 gram grip would increase the swingweight to E4? But the static weight would decrease by 25 grams. So, the overall club is lighter, but the swingweight is much heavier. [I understand swingweight to mean how the weight is distributed thoughout the club].

Would the club will swing lighter because I reduced the static weight even though the swingweight is "heavier"?

I could fool the swingweight scale by using a heavier grip and even adding weight to the butt end of the club, but then the static weight would be much higher.

What do you think would be easier on my elbows a lighter static weight or a "lighter" swingweight?

I could switch to graphite, but a) I really don't have the money to invest in that right now, b) I prefer steel, c) a softer grip would help reduce vibration, and d) I'm guessing a lighter club would reduce the strain as well.

I appreciate any thoughts you may have on this. :-)

I feel you on this one ... I was also looking for a "lighter" club whether it was through static weight or swing weight change. I actually went to get refitted for my irons and checked out some graphite iron shafts. I know they are more expensive than the traditional steel shafts but I felt that on mis-hits, the graphite shafts were a little more forgiving on my shoulders and elbows.

I played around with the KBS Tour 90's but they were a little too light. I tried a set of soft stepped KBS Tours but the overall feeling I got from my Rombax 115's were better than the KBS. The ball flight is nice and high and weighing in at about 115 grams, it was a nice compromise between the traditional 120+ grams and the 90 grams.

IMO, technology has allowed these shaft manufacturers to produce graphite iron shafts that share almost the same characterisitcs as a traditional steel shafts. I have noticed the same tight shot dispersion as my previous steel shafts (DGS300) and my tempo has remained the same.

Either way, good luck with your decision and by all means, take care of your elbows!

In my opinion, you shouldn't pay much attention to the swingweight scale when it comes to changing the weight of the grips on a set of irons. Whilst changes may have a tangible effect upon measured swingweights using the scale, the actual, practical effects - how heavy the clubs feel when they're swung - will be minimal. Changes in grip weight are far less noticable than changes in shaft weight or, particularly, in head weight.

It's far more important to pick a grip that you like, rather than worrying about which ones will have the least effect upon measured swingweights.

With elbow problems graphite will help.
Add in Pro soft inserts and reduce the shock even more.

A steel shaft and its added weight may be your enemy.
I would consider a lighter total weight, and not get too heavy in swingweight.

I deal with neck issues and do play the KBS tour 90's with prosoft and that has helped.
I have played graphite for 5 years but wanted to see what the buzz was for KBS.
They are staying in the bag this year.

I haven't looked at the 25g grips, but I would expect them to be soft, as there has to be more porus to them.
This too may help

This may lead to more questions than answers for you, but if swingweighting works for you (that is if you know when, where, how, and why the system's 14-inch fulcrum point comes into play and you know that your golfing motion matches up well with that dimension [which it does for a certain percentage of golfers]), then you should be able to consistently feel what a swingweight scale measures with respect to your golf clubs. In this case, clubs with heavier swingweights can indeed feel quite heavy when being swung even though the clubs' total weights might be relatively light (and vice versa), and the clubs' swingweights can be more crucial toward playing well than their total weights (within reason).

On the other hand, if swingweighting does not work well for you (which it does not for a certain percentage of golfers) because you rotate your clubs around a point notably different than 14 inches or you do not develop a relevant rotation point at all during your golfing motion, then you will not be able to consistently take advantage of the specification. In this case, the total weights of your golf clubs might be more important for you to match than the swingweights, or the clubs' swingweights may have to be progressively varied from club to club (more often than not in the reverse direction from what MOI club matching does [MOI is a completely opposite concept to swingweighting]) in order to play your best.

Be very wary of swingweighting advice (including but not limited to statements made that swingweight is only a "static" measurement, that swingweight is related to shaft flex, and/or that a swingweight scale is merely being "fooled") from anybody that cannot satisfactorily (and scientifically) explain every element noted above regarding how swingweighting works, or you are the one that will end up being "fooled." This golf club matching principle is strangely simple, yet sadly to this day golfers (and supposed clubfitting "experts" that golfers rely upon) in general remain quite uninformed regarding understanding and explaining swingweighting correctly, even 80 years now since the specification was first introduced.

The total, continuing failure of the clubfitting industry to justify this extremely crucial (and also this "beginners") concept (which tends to support the often-made statement that golfers [and also clubfitters] are not really athletes) is rationally the biggest reason (but hardly the only reason) why the golf clubfitting trade as a whole is currently the worst in all of sports. No launch monitor on the planet can help cover up and correct this trade's long history of (root-level) poor performance and bad reputation due to ongoing poor understandings and applications of this and other (even very primary) theories and practices of equipment fitting. Underachieving clubfitting will remain the norm until this industry is fully reformed.

Regarding what club specifications and/or components might be the easiest on your elbows, I do not have any personal experience with that, so you will have to rely on your own experimentation and/or the comments of others. Good luck.

i think you gotta take both into consideration. i just switched from a set that swingweighted to E0 to a set that swingweights to D1. i tried a lot of sets in between, lightweight sets with higher swingweights, heavier sets with lighter swingweights. the set i just switched too is noticeably lighter, which i like, but i still have a great feeling of where the head is. people have said my clubs are still head-heavy, despite them swinging to D-1.

moral is, neither one is supreme in my opinion. cant have one while ignoring the other...

In your post you are stating that "MOI is a completely opposite concept to swingweighting"

With all respect, thats not even close to the facts. MOI Matching clubs was invented long before Robert Adams made his first SW scale in the 1930"

Robert Adams found a way to make MOI matching more simplyfied, by using a fixed fulcrum at 14".(he used 12" for Pro players)
The goals for Robert Adams was the same as in MOI Matching, but he found a short cut, that works well, but its not perfect.

If you did not know, these 2 "religions" are so close to each other, that you can use a swingweight scale to MOI match you clubs.
I know that, cause iv done that with my irons and wedges, and its quite simple.
Both SW and MOI are both math, where resistanse to movement is measured. Thats what its al about.

In your post you are stating that "MOI is a completely opposite concept to swingweighting"

With all respect, thats not even close to the facts. MOI Matching clubs was invented long before Robert Adams made his first SW scale in the 1930"

Robert Adams found a way to make MOI matching more simplyfied, by using a fixed fulcrum at 14".(he used 12" for Pro players)
The goals for Robert Adams was the same as in MOI Matching, but he found a short cut, that works well, but its not perfect.

If you did not know, these 2 "religions" are so close to each other, that you can use a swingweight scale to MOI match you clubs.
I know that, cause iv done that with my irons and wedges, and its quite simple.
Both SW and MOI are both math, where resistanse to movement is measured. Thats what its al about.

I'm not sure that I would call SW a 'resistance to movement' measure, but I do have to admit that the idea that a 1st moment measurement (SW) is "the opposite" of a second moment measurement (MOI) is, well, kind of opposite of how I would view it.

The swingweight scale is just an incredibly old fashioned quasi-scientific instrument that gives a very narrow measure of how a club's weight is distributed across its length on a 14 inch fulcrum. It should be ditched by any legitimate clubmaker in favor of a gram scale and a backweight kit and a good, broad selection of light, normal, and heavy grips.

If you have a shaft you're set on, then the only possible questions are how much weight at the head end, and how much weight at the grip end. If you don't have a shaft you're decided upon, then you're too early in the process to even be worrying about swingweight.

Usually, it's not the scale that gets fooled, it's the poor sap who listens to a clubmaker argue that the swingweight really has changed due to a change in the grip weight.

If it really changes, then you really have to consider how "dynamic" a measure of "weight" it is: dynamic in the sense that if you do or don't wear a glove, then the swingweight of your club "magically" changes.

Better yet, they should just change the name to "Quantum Swingweight Scale" since the swingweight of your club is really in a state of superposition, until you pick it up, between whatever swingweight it might measure on the scale and whatever swingweight it would be depending on whether you're wearing your wedding ring, your watch, or a glove or any other thing that sits almost in exact proximity to the grip. (My watch is pretty heavy. But the swingweight of my clubs doesn't feel different if I play with it on or off, even though it sits almost touching the butt end of the club...almost right next to the grip).

Actually, that's a good way of looking at it. The next time someone asks me "What swingweight are your irons?", I'm just going to answer, "the wave function for that has not yet collapsed".

Because, really, isn't a 50 gram grip the same as a 75 gram grip when it has a 25 gram glove attached to it?

It is, and it has to be, because from a scientific viewpoint, from the perspective of "above the wrist", there is no difference in the context of the narrow measure that swingweight captures. A measurement of how the club feels that captured what was "felt" at the shoulders wouldn't distinguish between "no glove, 75 gram grip" and "25 gram glove, 50 gram grip" in the measurement where the club was in the hands.

The swingweight scale was developed to provide a specific and perhaps interesting measure of weight distribution for the original club that was on the scale when the inventor decided what markings to put on the scale. That may well have been a 130 gram hickory shaft, and 50 grams of leather wrapped around the grip. If so, then the swingweight scale would work comparably for Dynamic Gold and a 50 gram Tour Velvet. Stray well outside those initial parameters and all bets are off.

Any use of it downstream of that is entirely derivative, and completely subjective as to whether it captures the same information.

The people that really get fooled are the one's who hear a clubmaker say, "now that we changed to this 25 gram grip, you'll really be able to feel the clubhead more, because the swingweight is now D-9".

Befuddled player: "But when I hit balls with it, it really doesn't feel that much different from my other clubs."

Clubmaker who doesn't understand concept of ceteris paribus when it comes to balance measurements: "Nope. Says right here on the swingweight scale that the swingweight is D-9. The scale don't lie".

Befuddled player: "But I hit my buddy's club that is D-5, and the head end of his club feels much heavier than mine, even though the swingweight of my club is much higher. Why is that?"

Clubmaker, with the limitations described above: "The scale don't lie buddy".

Actually, that's a good way of looking at it. The next time someone asks me "What swingweight are your irons?", I'm just going to answer, "the wave function for that has not yet collapsed".

Pretty funny, actually *

NPVWhiz, on 02 March 2010 - 11:33 AM, said:

SNIP

Clubmaker who doesn't understand concept of ceteris paribus when it comes to balance measurements: "Nope. Says right here on the swingweight scale that the swingweight is D-9. The scale don't lie".

Befuddled player: "But I hit my buddy's club that is D-5, and the head end of his club feels much heavier than mine, even though the swingweight of my club is much higher. Why is that?"

Clubmaker, with the limitations described above: "The scale don't lie buddy".

Anyone agree?

FWIW, all my clubs are (or are within a SW point of) E2. However I measure this with no grip. I change my grips often and buy the cheapest that I can find (and ignore the weight). So I guess I agree.

dave

* I mark all my balls with the Greek letter Psi (quantum state variable - typically) or h-bar (Planck's constant reduced). Since the rules of golf requires that I hit a golf ball with a known momentum (zero motion), and Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty says that if I know exactly the momentum of a golf ball just before impact (zero) there is no way that I can have any knowledge at all of the balls position. This is my way of saying that when I hit a bad shot it isn't my fault (how can you possible hit a ball when you can't possibly know where it is). Most folks don't appreciate that - you might.

This may lead to more questions than answers for you, but if swingweighting works for you (that is if you know when, where, how, and why the system's 14-inch fulcrum point comes into play and you know that your golfing motion matches up well with that dimension [which it does for a certain percentage of golfers]), then you should be able to consistently feel what a swingweight scale measures with respect to your golf clubs. In this case, clubs with heavier swingweights can indeed feel quite heavy when being swung even though the clubs' total weights might be relatively light (and vice versa), and the clubs' swingweights can be more crucial toward playing well than their total weights (within reason).

On the other hand, if swingweighting does not work well for you (which it does not for a certain percentage of golfers) because you rotate your clubs around a point notably different than 14 inches or you do not develop a relevant rotation point at all during your golfing motion, then you will not be able to consistently take advantage of the specification. In this case, the total weights of your golf clubs might be more important for you to match than the swingweights, or the clubs' swingweights may have to be progressively varied from club to club (more often than not in the reverse direction from what MOI club matching does [MOI is a completely opposite concept to swingweighting]) in order to play your best.

Be very wary of swingweighting advice (including but not limited to statements made that swingweight is only a "static" measurement, that swingweight is related to shaft flex, and/or that a swingweight scale is merely being "fooled") from anybody that cannot satisfactorily (and scientifically) explain every element noted above regarding how swingweighting works, or you are the one that will end up being "fooled." This golf club matching principle is strangely simple, yet sadly to this day golfers (and supposed clubfitting "experts" that golfers rely upon) in general remain quite uninformed regarding understanding and explaining swingweighting correctly, even 80 years now since the specification was first introduced.

The total, continuing failure of the clubfitting industry to justify this extremely crucial (and also this "beginners") concept (which tends to support the often-made statement that golfers [and also clubfitters] are not really athletes) is rationally the biggest reason (but hardly the only reason) why the golf clubfitting trade as a whole is currently the worst in all of sports. No launch monitor on the planet can help cover up and correct this trade's long history of (root-level) poor performance and bad reputation due to ongoing poor understandings and applications of this and other (even very primary) theories and practices of equipment fitting. Underachieving clubfitting will remain the norm until this industry is fully reformed.

Regarding what club specifications and/or components might be the easiest on your elbows, I do not have any personal experience with that, so you will have to rely on your own experimentation and/or the comments of others. Good luck.

I waded through most of the stuff at the above site (lots of it, BTW and I admit to scanning it rather than reading it carefully). And I also dug up one of the patents that was issued (applied for in 2005, issued in 2009). FWIW, here is what I saw

1) KOSTUJ is keeping the details in kind of a "trade secret" status. He would like to sell it, but (it appears to me) has been unsuccessful so far. But note that the post had tons of generalities about "what others don't know", but no specifics of what he suggests as the alternative. That is consistent with everything that I read on the referenced website (and is hardly a bad idea, assuming the concept truly has a marketable value). But enough detail to evaluate the validity of this in not available (that I could tell).

2) The patent (at least one of them, I recall references to more than one) can be viewed at

which will require a (free) registration (to view it all - some info is available without registration).

3) The essense of this patent (from what I can tell) is to 'tune' (my word, not his) the fulcrum position in a SW scale to the golfer (it is 14" from the grip end that is the standard and about all you will find these days). To me that is a VERY interesting thought and is why I took the time to read a bunch of stuff.

4) It certainly begs the question "OK then, how do you do this". Apparently it is done by the geometry (and maybe the tempo/speed, not sure) of "your waggle". I dont' know how to claim that this is wrong, but it most CERTAINLY is counter-intuitive - at least to me. Of course maybe it would be because I just DO NOT WAGGLE (never have). So I have no idea how this would work in my case (or any case - see the previous trade secret comment). If someone were to convince me that this was 'the right approach' to balancing the weight and weight distribution of different clubs, my best guess would be that it is due to the 'realtime calibration effect' of a waggle. But like I said, I personally have never waggled (maybe that is a bad thing - hard to tell).

5) The patent was applied for in 2005 and the referenced WaggleWeight blog was started in 2006. KOSTUJ may be a clubfitting genious (I just don't know how to judge from what I have taken the time to read). But I would say that he is most definitely not a marketing genious. His market for this technology is clubfitters. He seems to have spent most of his online efforts in 2006 and 2007 trying to alienate every single clubfitter on this planet (at least those who have read his stuff). For example the title of his 12/23/06 Blog entry is

Note that he is calling his target market a bunch of idiots (and also note that no one that I am aware of has ever heard of WaggleWeight). He has toned this down a bit in recent years, it appears (but not much, based on the quoted post).

And, by the way, I think that there was an earlier article posted that gave some insight on the original intent/use for the swingweight scale that suggested that it wasn't even about the weight distribution, but was rather used as a fine tuning device for accomplishing shaft flex adjustments...subflexes if you will, via changes in head weight.

This also makes very intuitive sense to me, in that I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to match a set of hickory iron shafts, and adding a bit of weight to the head might have had a more noticable effect in an era where each club was almost unique, with the kind of uniformity and consistency we have today being a distant dream back then.

Since the grip weight is in line with the hands, then yes, it truly does become close to being negated from a feel standpoint. I agree with dave that swing weight should be measured without the grip.

I find it hard to say that swingweight has no value. It is part of the mathematical combination that helps us develop consistency throughout the set. Yes, it is a tool, and yes it does have limitations, but still has value.

When a set is built to the right combinations of total weight, correct length and lie, flex and everythinbg you can do about feel, there has to be merit in this.

I guess I'm one of those guys that do - totally believe in the correctness of a set, that will result in better playability for every individual.

Replying especially to Howard Jones' comments here, I am well aware that MOI golf club matching was used for a time before swingweighting was even invented. Based solely on my personal analysis of the wording used in Adams' original swingweight scale patent, he did not appear particularly supportive of the MOI matching concept previously used and he did not seem to be looking for a more convenient way to MOI match clubs. He was simply trying to find a better way altogether of matching golf clubs to each other. My recollection is that the patent content principally covers the feel of the heft of a golf club when swung, with no mention at all of MOI forces (or shaft flexing, another golf club element that many erroneously believe swingweight is based upon). But I concede I have not looked over that document in a while.

Now if you can locate some older notes or other documentations that show Adams was specifically trying to devise a device for more convenient MOI matching, that would be very interesting reading indeed. But even if such notes could confirm that, this would still not conclusively settle the matter. Adams indicated in the patent document that he did not really understand why the fulcrum point of the scale he invented ended up to be at 14 inches. All he knew for sure was that the player(s) being tested most consistently played/swung best when the player's clubs were set to identical balances while on a fulcrum that was about 14 inches from the grip end of each golf club. Thus, even if the original intent was for a more convenient way of MOI club matching, that is certainly not what the final product (and concept) ended up being, and Adams may not have even realized what he discovered. New inventions are discovered by accident all the time.

When all is said and done, I can assure you that MOI golf club matching in its currently prescribed form and swingweight matching are two golf club specifications that are complete opposites of each other in both theory and practice. That is a fact. Those who claim otherwise often understand MOI well but do not understand swingweighting, and whoever taught you that the two are the same or similar taught you wrong. To supplement this information, I will disclose in very broad terms that the 14-inch dimension of the current swingweighting system tends to be a better fit for more practiced players. As such, many golfers who never reach a certain level of playing experience never even get the chance to encounter swingweighting in the way it is truly meant to operate. Due to this circumstance, even a brilliant engineer may not be able to correctly explain the first thing about the concept of golf club swingweighting if he/she has not had certain experiences.

This is a prime example of what I am referring to when I blast (often sarcastically) the industry regarding how poor some of the present clubfitting theories are and how they are so easily believed by unsuspecting golfers and/or clubfitters (who are often more inexperienced in certain areas of performance and equipment fitting to begin with than their counterparts in other sporting activities). This cannot be one of the proudest moments of the golf clubfitting trade. But to help Jones out just a bit, at least be aware that the 12-inch fulcrum scale was developed by a completely different person (Kenneth Smith) about 20 years after Adams' original scale design, and the 12-inch design was and is the one geared toward more average players, not the other way around. These are other specifics that you unfortunately have backward or incorrect.

When all is said and done, I can assure you that MOI golf club matching in its currently prescribed form and swingweight matching are two golf club specifications that are complete opposites of each other in both theory and practice. That is a fact. Those who claim otherwise often understand MOI well but do not understand swingweighting, and whoever taught you that the two are the same or similar taught you wrong. To supplement this information, I will disclose in very broad terms that the 14-inch dimension of the current swingweighting system tends to be a better fit for more practiced players. As such, many golfers who never reach a certain level of playing experience never even get the chance to encounter swingweighting in the way it is truly meant to operate. Due to this circumstance, even a brilliant engineer may not be able to correctly explain the first thing about the concept of golf club swingweighting if he/she has not had certain experiences.

SNIP

I'm curious as to exactly how Swingweight Matching is "the opposite" of MOI Matching. If you look at the parameters that are most typically used to adjust whatever measure you chose for weight/heft/rotational inertia/etc.

They all operate in 'the same direction' relative to their effect on 'the calculation'. MOI and SW move in the same direction with changes in any of these 'most important parameters'.

Where does "the opposite" come from? Grip weight has an opposite effect for sure. But that hardly seems important (or even very relevant). On a purely technical level I have never heard of a First Moment measurement referred to as 'the opposite' of a Second Moment measurement of the same system.

dave

ps. Since you seem to claim to have some knowledge or insight that you aren't willing to share, you do need to expect a bit of skepticism on a forum like this.

In regards to the static weight side.
When I play my rifles which are heavier, I tire by the 14'th hole.
When I play my KBS Tour 90's the fatigue side does not show up,
so this for sure is why we need to consider static weight.

Moment of Inertia is a scientific term much as "mass" is a scientific term compared to "weight".
And that's a great analogy to help explain moment of inertia. If you think of "weight" as a measure of an object's resistance to being lifted, then think of "swing weight" as a measure of a club's resistance to being rotated during a swing.
But an object does not have "weight". It has "mass". Weight is simply a means measure mass in the presence of gravity and express it conveniently. Same with swing weight. Clubs don't have a swing weight. They have a Moment Of Inertia. But swing weight is the method used to measure and express this property.

#

Need to know what a "swing weight" is first?
See that ten-pound bag of potatoes over there? Lift it. Do it now!
If you can think of an object's weight as a measure of its resistance to being lifted. Then think of the swing weight as a measure of a club's resistance to being swung in a circle. To a physicist, the proper term is "moment of inertia". The swing weight of a club is basically determined by the length of the shaft and the mass of the club head. Although other parts of the club make some contributions.

#

For those of you who are technically inclined, the swing weight of a club is actually a measure of a club's moment of inertia about a point 14-inches distant from the butt-end of the shaft. Swing weight scales are designed to pivot around that point despite the fact that the hands actually rotate the club only about six inches from the butt end. Adams found, through trial-and-error, that "14-inches" was a good value to use when building clubs for professional golfers. It has been the accepted standard for 8 decades.

For those of you who are technically inclined, the swing weight of a club is actually a measure of a club's moment of inertia about a point 14-inches distant from the butt-end of the shaft. Swing weight scales are designed to pivot around that point despite the fact that the hands actually rotate the club only about six inches from the butt end. Adams found, through trial-and-error, that "14-inches" was a good value to use when building clubs for professional golfers. It has been the accepted standard for 8 decades.

Swingweight is not a measure of the MOI - it is a measure of the torque required to balance a golf club around a point 14" from the grip end. By coincidence or intent (I don't know) SW balancing (around an axis 14" from the grip end) comes reasonably close to MOI matching (around an axis at/near the grip end).